The 19th century showman P.T. Barnum famously claimed that, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Apparently, Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lamar Alexander think that Barnum’s dictum applies to their Senate colleagues. Both have undertaken a “bait-and-switch” game, constantly upping the ante on their request for an Obamacare “stability” bill — and raising questions about their credibility and integrity as legislators in the process.
Flash back to last December, when Congress considered provisions repealing the individual mandate as part of the tax reform bill. At that time, Collins engaged in a colloquy with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said he would support legislation funding Obamacare’s cost-sharing reductions, as well as Collins’ own reinsurance proposal.
Collins described her bill in their exchange:
I thank the majority leader for his response. Second, it is critical that we provide States with the support they need to create State-based high-risk pools for their individual health insurance markets. In September, I introduced the bipartisan Lower Premiums Through Reinsurance Act of 2017, a bill that would allow States to protect people with preexisting conditions while lowering premiums through the use of these high-risk pools….
I believe that passage of legislation to create and provide $5 billion in funding for high-risk pools annually over 2 years, together with the Bipartisan Health Care Stabilization Act, is critical for helping to offset the impact on individual market premiums in 2019 and 2020 due to repeal of the individual mandate. [Emphasis mine.]
Collins viewed McConnell’s commitment as so iron-clad that she put a transcript of the colloquy up on her website. Unfortunately, however, Collins didn’t find her side of the bargain as an iron-clad commitment.
One week after that exchange on the Senate floor, Alexander wrote an op-ed on a potential “stability” package. That op-ed claimed that Collins’ reinsurance bill included “$10 billion for invisible high-risk pools or reinsurance funds.” However, the text of the Collins bill itself would appropriate “$2,250,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2018 and 2019” — that is, $4.5 billion and not $10 billion. I noted that discrepancy at the time, writing that, “Alexander seems to be engaged in a bidding war with himself about the greatest amount of taxpayers’ money he can shovel insurers’ way.”
It turns out I was (slightly) mistaken. Alexander wasn’t in a bidding war with himself over giving the greatest amount of taxpayer funds to insurers — he is in a bidding war with Collins. Just this week, both Collins and Alexander issued press releases touting a (flawed and overhyped) premium study by Oliver Wyman. The press releases claimed that “Oliver Wyman released an analysis today showing that the passage of a proposal based on … the Collins-Nelson Lower Premiums through Reinsurance Act will lower premiums … by more than 40 percent.” [Emphasis mine.]
But the release went on to note that, “Oliver Wyman based its analysis on a proposal that would fund [cost-sharing reductions] … and provide $10 billion annually for invisible risk pool/reinsurance funding in 2019, 2020, and 2021.” Not $2.25 billion for fiscal years 2018 and 2019, as the actual Collins-Nelson bill would provide — but more than four times as much annually, for a 50 percent longer duration.
Not even Common Core math can explain the gaping chasm between the funding amounts in the two bills. Does Alexander really want to make a straight-faced claim that an estimate assuming $30 billion in funding is “based on” a bill providing only $5 billion in funding? And if so, then why should a Senator who fails a math test even a first-grader could comprehend chair the committee with jurisdiction over federal educational policy?
Collins and Alexander went to all this trouble because they want to have their cake and eat it too. Collins expects McConnell to abide by his commitment from December — she reportedly cursed out a senior White House aide when the “stability” package failed to pass late last year. But she has no place criticizing McConnell or others for not keeping their word when she has proved unable to keep hers, by upping the ante on her asks for a “stability” bill — and putting out misleading press releases to hide the fact that she ever asked for “only” $5 billion in taxpayer funds.
Collins has no place attacking the White House, or anyone else, for “reneging on the deal.” She reneged on the deal herself — by not sticking to her original commitments, and then putting out misleading press releases to cover her tracks. The White House, and McConnell, should never have made an agreement on a “stability” bill with Collins in the first place. But if they did, the unscrupulous way in which she has handled herself since then should have nullified it.
